One section of track on my DC layout, which serves as a siding, is gapped at each end (on the south side) and wired to a SPDT toggle switch so I can pause or park a train there while another passes by on the adjacent mainline. If I add feeder wires from the main power supply bus wires to that section to improve current flow, will that at all interfere with the pausing/stopping function of that section of track? Or, am I good to go? Thanks!
If you have power on the track, any track, the locomotive will move based on the throttle setting. Some turnouts are power routing for that purpose.
If the feeder wires bypass the switch then I'd think you would have power all the time and not be able to do what you are doing now. If the feeder wires are after the SPDT switch then I don't see why that wouldn't work. I'd have adequate gauge wiring to the switch and then a buss after it with as many feeder wires as you wanted. How long is the siding and is it all powered now by just one set of wires after it? Sumner
Sumner, Not being intimately familiar with the inner workings of the mind of Sir Issac Newton, your first sentence expresses my initial sense. It seems that'd be pitting electrons vs. electrons. Clarify please what you mean by "If the feeder wires are after the SPDT switch..." The key word is "after." That is, the feeder wires would go where - attached to one of the SPDT's terminals? All the wires are of quite adequate gauge (22, 20 and 16 AWG). The layout is quite small, only 5' x 7'. The siding is just about three feet long. It's powered by one set of wires coming off the main power pack and, of course, its "stop-motion" function is controlled by the center-off SPDT.
From your first post you said ... 'If I add feeder wires from the main power supply bus wires to that section to improve current flow'. From that it sounded like you feel you need more feeder wires feeding the 3 foot section of track. I would think that at the most two sets about 6 inches in from each end would be more than adequate. You say you are using a SPDT switch that has a center off. If that was the case you would only be turning one wire of the two wire DC system off which would work but for clarification is it really a DPDT center off switch and you are turning both of the wires off? A DPST switch would work if you just need to turn the wires off or on. With a DPDT you would only use the center and the terminals on one end of the switch unless you were also wanting to change the polarity of that section independently of the rest of the layout. You couldn't do that with a SPDT. Either way if you felt you needed more than one feeder on the siding then I'd run either the one or both of the #16 wires (if it is a DPDT) to the switch. Then the #16 on the other side of the switch along under the siding and 2 sets of feeders off it it to the track with the #20 or #22. Someone else with more experience can tell you if you really need more than one set of feeders on that 3 feet of track. I'd think one set in the middle of it would be fine. A simple schematic of what you have now would help to make sure we are on the same page. Sumner
If you ran wires from the power pack, through a toggle switch, to that section of track, you have already added a feeder wire. Unless those wires are nichrome resistor wire, or thinner than human hairs, or that siding is over twenty feet long, I can't imagine that's not sufficient. If you add more wires to that isolated section and fail to run them through your control switch, that siding will cease to be a place to park. The electricity flowing through that toggle will obey you when you tell it not to flow by turning that switch off. The electricity flowing through any new wire which runs directly from the power pack to the track won't pay any attention to how you set that switch, and it will not read your mind. It will not fail to reach your locomotive and make it run.
